The German Justice Ministry plans to allocate €30 million to pay compensation to thousands of men convicted under Paragraph 175, a law that criminalized homosexuality that was enforced until late 1960s.

A draft law regulating the compensation will be announced later this month, Justice Minister Heiko Maas told Süddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday. The minister said it will provide for “relatively uncomplicated” individual claims and allow for collective compensations.

Paragraph 175 of the German penal code succeeded laws criminalizing male homosexuality originating in late medieval times that had existed since the 1870s, when Germany became a unified country. Socialist East Germany effectively stopped applying the law to consensual sex in the 1950s and decriminalized homosexuality officially in 1987, but in West Germany gay adults continued to be prosecuted until 1969, with an estimated 100,000 sent to the docks and about 50,000 sentenced to prison between 1945 and 1969. Read more via RT